Matter Matters: Chicago Works, Andrew Yang (original) (raw)
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The Living Cosmos : A Fabric That Binds Art and Science
Leonardo, 2010
After authors Chris Impey and Heather Green worked together on a series of posters in which artist Green layered Ernst Haeckel's illustrations of diatoms with imagery of computer circuitry and dark matter, Chris Impey approached Green with the idea of creating seven pieces that would capture the essence of each of the chapters in his popular book on astrobiology, The Living Cosmos [1].
Technological World-Pictures: Cosmic Things and Cosmograms
Isis, 2007
Martin Heidegger's notion of things as gatherings that disclose a world conveys the "thickness" of everyday objects. This essay extends his discussion of things-part of a sustained criticism of modern technology-to technological objects as well. As a corrective to his totalizing, even totalitarian, generalizations about "enframing" and "the age of the worldpicture," and to a more widespread tendency among critics of modernity to present technology in only the most dystopian, uniform, and claustrophobic terms, this essay explores two species of technical object: cosmic things and cosmograms. The first suggests how an ordinary object may contain an entire cosmos, the second how a cosmos may be treated as just another thing. These notions are proposed as a basis for comparison and connection between "the industrial world" and other modes of ordering the universe. THE WORLD AND EVERYTHING THAT IS IN THE CASE Walking through a museum of anthropology, with its dioramas and glass cases full of tools, masks, statues, and weapons that encapsulate entire forms of life, perhaps you've wondered: What would such an exhibit for contemporary U.S. culture look like? No doubt it would have to include symbols and objects to evoke our contested plurality of religious, political, and scientific systems. But a prominent place would also go to technological objects: computers, cell phones, and pills, scale-model factories, airplanes, and freeways, with nuclear bombs looming against the blue painted sky. Though the matte plastic and gleaming titanium of these objects would contrast with the wood, shells, feathers, and bark in their neighboring exhibits, these are the things-like Mayan calendars, Songye nkishi statues, Kwakiutl canoes and totem poles-that define our cosmology, our relations with nature and with each other. A cosmology is more than a system of classification, an origin myth, or a theory of the relationships among what there is in the universe; it also involves affective and aesthetic dimensions and the sense of coherence of a group's characteristic words, practices, and
Article Visualising the Universe Damian Sabatini
Journal of Material Culture, 2024
The last decade has witnessed an increased interest in outer space among non-expert citizens of London; many astronomical societies have expanded, and telescopes and astronomical magazines have experienced pronounced growth in sales. Anthropology, as a discipline focused on the study of human culture, has recently provided new insights into the cultural dimensions involved in contemporary experiences of the universe. After spending two months among amateur astronomers at two London astronomical societies, I argue that pictures – understood from a material culture perspective – play a key role in shaping people´s relationship with the universe. This relationship is currently influenced by new technologies that offer more accessible ways to capture and share pictures of the skies. Simultaneously, new social media apps have opened new digital platforms for sharing outer space pictures, introducing innovative visual ways to engage with it.
A touch of awe: crafting meaning from the wonder of the cosmos
Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, 2018
From the birth of galaxies to the self-organizing dynamics of our planet to the ongoing expansion of the universe, the more we discover about the evolution of the cosmos, the more acutely we realize the enormity of what remains to be known. Just this year astrophysicists at the University of Nottingham confirmed that there are at least two trillion galaxies in the cosmos, 10 times more than had been previously thought. What guidance or wisdom can the study of cosmology and astrophysics offer us in our search for meaning and purpose? In conversation with Steve Paulson, executive producer and host of To the Best of Our Knowledge, theoretical physicists Paul Davies and Ard Louis, and astrophysicist Lucianne Walkowicz share their perceptions based on years of gazing upward and beyond our own intimate planet.
VISUALIZING THE UNIVERSE -THE INTERSECTION OF ART AND ASTRONOMY
2018
This article presents a colloboration between a research astronomer and a professional artist. The paintings resulting from this transdisciplinary work are inspired by stories of recent astronomical discoveries, and by images from ground-and space-based telescopes. During the collaborative process, the dialogue between the scientist and the artist emerges as a new language that changes the perspective of each. The work remains true to science while utilizing the possibilities of the oil-based medium. The aim of this project is to extend the art-science conversation to audiences viewing the work.
arXiv: Popular Physics, 2020
Are there parallels between the furthest reaches of our universe, and the foundations of thought, awareness, perception, and emotion? What are the connections between the webs and structures that define both? What are the differences? "As Above As Below" was an exhibition that examined these questions. It consisted of six artworks, each of them the product of a collaboration that included at least one artist, astrophysicist, and neuroscientist. The installations explored new parallels between intergalactic and neuronal networks through media such as digital projection, virtual reality, and interactive multimedia, and served to illustrate diverse collaboration practices and ways to communicate across very different fields.
Creativity and Curiosity: Exploring the Space Between Artists and Astronomers
Scottish Society for Art History :Journal Art Science, 2023
Creativity and Curiosity is an international artscience project led by UK contemporary visual artists, Gillian McFarland and Ione Parkin, working in connection with astrophysicists, cosmologists and planetary scientists from a wide range of universities and institutions. The artists have developed a body of work in relation to their ongoing dialogue with space researchers. Through creative enquiry into the dynamic forces of the universe this artist-led project explores the nature of interdisciplinarity within the practice of visual thinking. All the artworks referred to in the text can be found on www.creativityandcuriosity.com.
Indigenous American arts are part of a complex system in which the finished craft is often as important as the gestures involved in its manufacture. The lecture will explore through examples from Pre-Columbian and historic cultures of the Americas how the production of objects and patterns establishes bridges between different registers of reality and the beings that populate Amerindian cosmologies.